"I have no right to do so. I am the trustee of my father's honour and my mother's name: I must vindicate both: I cannot forego this lawsuit. But when I once bowed myself to enter your house--then only with a hope, where now I have the certainty of obtaining my heritage--it was with the resolve to bury in oblivion every sentiment that would transgress the most temperate justice. Now, I will do more. If the law decide against me, we are as we were; if with me--listen: I will leave you the lands of Beaufort, for your life and your son's. I ask but for me and for mine such a deduction from your wealth as will enable me, should my brother be yet living, to provide for him; and (if you approve the choice, which out of all earth I would desire to make) to give whatever belongs to more refined or graceful existence than I myself care for,--to her whom I would call my wife. Robert Beaufort, in this room I once asked you to restore to me the only being I then loved: I am now again your suppliant; and this time you have it in your power to grant my prayer. Let Arthur be, in truth, my brother: give me, if I prove myself, as I feel assured, entitled to hold the name my father bore, give me your daughter as my wife; give me Camilla, and I will not envy you the lands I am willing for myself to resign; and if they pass to any children, those children will be your daughter's!" The first impulse of Mr. Beaufort was to grasp the hand held out to him; to pour forth an incoherent torrent of praise and protestation, of assurances that he could not hear of such generosity, that what was right was right, that he should be proud of such a son-in-law, and much more in the same key. And in the midst of this, it suddenly occurred to Mr. Beaufort, that if Philip's case were really as good as he said it was, he could not talk so coolly of resigning the property it would secure him for the term of a life (Mr. Beaufort thought of his own) so uncommonly good, to say nothing of Arthur's. At this notion, he thought it best not to commit himself too far; drew in as artfully as he could, until he could consult Lord Lilburne and his lawyer; and recollecting also that he had a great deal to manage with respect to Camilla and her prior attachment, he began to talk of his distress for Arthur, of the necessity of waiting a little before Camilla was spoken to, while so agitated about her brother, of the exceedingly strong case which his lawyer advised him he possessed--not but what he would rather rest the matter on justice than law--and that if the law should be with him, he would not the less (provided he did not force his daughter's inclinations, of which, indeed, he had no fear) be most happy to bestow her hand on his brother's nephew, with such a portion as would be most handsome to all parties.